TEED 512 - Fall, 2011 - Ed Tech Strand

Twenty-point assignment page



As described in class, if you want to get to 20 points rather than the standard 18, you need to complete an additional assignment. There are two ways to go. The first is to come up with and describe a new resource for our Societal Issues Threaded Discussion. That means that you must locate and describe a resource that is available on-line and that addresses a substantial societal issue involving technology and schools. The description does not need to be any more (or less) complete or complex than those you find currently on our Societal Issues Threaded Discussion page. As described in class you may link this from the top page of your portfolio. If, however, you want to make it available to the whole class, you can place your entries on this page. Please be sure to put your name (or your initials if you prefer) on your effort and separate yours from others with a horizontal line above and below your entry.

The other option is to create an original digital video that could be used to address some educational topic or need in a K-12 setting. The video needs to be less than or equal to two minutes in length. You must provide an annotated (a one or two-sentence description of its educational use) link on this page. Your video can be hosted on YouTube, your own portfolio site, or elsewhere. (Let me know if you have questions about how to make it available.) As with the Societal Issues resource option, be sure to put your name (or your initials, etc.) on your effort and separate yours from others with a horizontal line above and below your entry.
I have two learning targets for this exercise:
a.) develop your understanding of how digital video may be used to enhance teaching and learning, and
b.) develop your understanding of some issue or aspect of content in the realm of k-12 education.


Links to your entries should be posted below this line:

Visual Annotation by Connie Hansen: http://celizabette.wordpress.com/imade-an-imovie/

Caveat: I can't figure out how to embed videos in WordPress... so please follow the link... to the link! Thanks.

So! I made a "video" that is essentially a slide show of internet images I have no rights to. The images flow in time with the audio, which is Richard Burton reading a classic poem by one of my favorite poets, Dylan Thomas. As usual, I find myself at the interdisciplinary corner where my two endorsements meet (language arts and visual arts). What can I say? I'm a natural 21st century educator! While the medium is visual, the target is actually creative writing and poetry appreciation. Essentially I see my video as an experiment, prototype or example for what my students might do in response to classic poetry. Many students feel locked out of poetry, because it can feel obscure if you are looking for narrative sense instead of symbolic sense. Symbols are essentially images, which is where the visual power of iMovie steps in, in time with the auditory "text".

Many poems are constituted primarily by images -- and loosely associated images at that. Students can wonder what one line has to do with the other. The trick is picture it -- to literally play a movie in the mind. By making a slideshow in parallel with a poem, students can practice pulling key images from the mess of poetry; they can then begin to construct symbolic narratives and unlock the meaning of the poem. If students in a language arts classroom were actually to each make their own film or slideshow "graphing" a poem, the really fun part would be to see how different each visual iteration of the same poem would doubtlessly be. I think this phenomena in and of itself would be a helpful lesson: "Look! See kids? There are no right answers so stop being afraid of being wrong. Let's all make it up as we go along together."



Building Classroom Community (created by Jamie Carr): Here is a video that I created to teach students the importance of what a healthy classroom community should look like. In my classroom, I will be sure to teach each child the importance of respecting each other and the world, listen to one another, smile often, help somebody else if they are feeling down, and work together to create a positive learning environment. Enjoy!




Grammar Fun (created by Zharina Angeles)


This is a fun short film that can be used to teach or introduce young students about grammar. In the film, Grammar Thief causes trouble by stealing words or punctuations from sentences. As a result, Grammar Hero comes to the rescue and fixes all of the sentences. The film is a way of modeling bad grammar, through Grammar Thief, and good grammar, through Grammar Hero.



Video Games and Creativity (posted by Margie G)

With all the negative publicity around video games, it's hard to imagine a study touting academic benefits from such games. However, a study released today connects creativity with video games and asserts "there's some intellectual good" in playing the games. Michigan State University's Children and Technology Project studied 500 12-year-olds and found that boys and girls who play video games scored higher on creative thinking tests than their peers. This correlation was true for boys and girls, across all races. The video gamers also had significantly higher visual-spacial skills. What implications might these findings have when we consider educating students for the 21st century? How do you feel about video games as an educator? Are there questions you have for the researchers who conducted the study?

Here is the link to the article:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/11/research-video-games-help-with-creativity/1
Article by Mike Snider, USA Today, November 2, 2011



Video Created by James Millikan



This video shows a step by step approach to factoring quadratic equations. The method presented in the video is especially tailored to make sense to algebra students that are still thinking more concretely about mathematics. The visual and auditory learners may be more engaged by videos than by textbooks. Furthermore, video allows for "cognitive apprenticeship," whereby teachers model the thinking processes that successful problem-solvers employ. I limited the "think alouds" in my video to cut down the length, but I fully intend to use this practice extensively in videos that I actually use for my high school math classes.



This link will take you to Karen McHegg's wiki, with a description of a prototype for a video book report and a link to the video.



**The Story of Stuff Project** - Posted by Jeremy Louzao
The_Story_of_Stuff.jpg
Okay, so we know that most U.S. students are digitally immersed, with smartphones, social media, iPhones, and video games. But where do all those technological gadgets physically come from? Who makes them, where, and what kinds of material does it take? And what are the consequences of all this tech--and all of our other consumerist items of choice--for our planet and our society? The Story of Stuff Project is a fascinating resource for teachers to investigate these questions with our students, all blossoming from Annie Leonard's 20-minute, student-friendly documentary of the same name. Since the first documentary was made in 2007, the project has expanded greatly, and now classrooms can find even more resources such as The Story of Electronics, The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Bottled Water, and more.



Video created and produced by Crystal Bronte, Alex Craighead, and Nathan Santo.


Purpose: The purpose of our video is to educate students on public speaking, specifically ways they can improve on their performances. Through using models of poor and strong performances as well as performing an educational rap, we hope that students find our video helpful and engaging.You can also visit the video on YouTube by clicking here.


Video created by Andrew Kreiter and Kate Zender: SPORTS!!!



Purpose: The purpose of this video is to motivate and inspire students of all ages to get involved in sports. Sports provide kids with so many positive learning opportunities. They help kids make and strengthen friendships, learn from positive role models and each other, and build confidence as well as other important social skills. Sports also allow kids to blow off steam, have fun, and develop healthy habits.


**Classroom StoryCorps**
Katie Streit


This video would help provide relevance and context to an ELL or language arts class, as it helps students understand why learning to read and write are important for future success and why speaking multiple languages can be an asset. It shows students an interesting career path and brings a member of the community into the classroom. It's also a great model of a successful, hard-working woman who can inspire girls (and boys).

This video could be a part of a StoryCorps project in which students interview people they admire and are close to in order to learn more about their lives. Or, it could be part of a project in which students explore potential careers by interviewing members of the community and taping the interviews to share with their classmates. A StoryCorps project could use stories and videos created by NPR and PBS to model finished projects and help give students ideas:




Spanish Food Vocabulary Video created by Allison Gilman

Click here to see my video, which I posted on YouTube.

Purpose:
This short video introduces food vocabulary to beginner Spanish students. I think this would be a good way to start the food unit in Spanish 1. I am also imagining that students could create similar videos on a variety of vocabulary sections as a project for class credit.


I Wish I Could Learn French! by Julia O'Donnell



Purpose: This video inspires students to learn French through the exploration of books, artists, cuisine, authors, singers, and music. With a fascination to learn about another culture and language, one will begin to progress in their ability to comprehend, speak, and sing the language.



kiva.jpg
Kiva is a non-profit organization devoted to allowing people even in the most remote areas of the world the access to capital and create opportunities for a better life. Kiva works with microfinance institutions to help alleviate poverty. Individuals can lend as little as $25 to people without access to traditional banks and one hundred percent of every dollar you send goes directly towards funding loans. Loans can be used to open a business, build housing, and fund education. Learning more about Kiva and participating in lending can teach students basic principles of economics and microfinance, and empower students to make a difference. - posted by Kristi Eisele
Kiva.org
See how educators used kiva.org in their classrooms here




Video created by Emily Veling and Celeste Eustis



Purpose: This video makes learning about the United States fun and exciting. Many students are asked to learn the names of all of the states, and this song is a great way to have them do so. By overlaying the song with a picture from each state as it is referenced, this video also gives kids an idea of different geographical regions, landmarks, and more. By using educational songs in their classrooms, teachers can motivate kids to learn while also infusing their classroom with a little bit of the arts.



By: Nicole Greer
Humanity Test

Global Social Issues and International Policy Reforms


Global Factors and Subcomponents:
Global Issues Proposals Obstacles Ideals:

external image global-foreign-policy-social-issues-challenges3-300x107.gif
  • If all food, shelter, health care, education, etc. were free for you and every future generation, would you volunteer your skills, knowledge and time in your chosen areas of interests and competencies for local and global benefit?
  • Purpose: This website consists of Global Social Issues and International Policy Reforms. It's aim is to help everyone understand that essential global resources is very unevenly distributed amongst the nations in the world. I find this an extremely informative and rich piece of technology in that it treads through thousands of years of human and technological advancement, from Health Care to Education. It helps visitors to define and understand the many disparities in the world, with regards to education, poverty rates, socio-economic statuses. When you get to the site you can click on one of the many links to World Issues like Crime and Poverty. The link sends you to a page that helps students understand how crime and poverty are linked to sustained conditions, intentional actions, system-supported conditions, etc. I think this tool is useful for a classroom setting or to send home with your students for some homework on societal issues.




By: Russell Carroll
I love to commute by bicycle and hope that I can inspire many of my students to at least consider it for International Bike to School Day. The first bike to school day of the year is October 5th, so this video is directed towards that date, but could be used at other times. It needs more instructions on proper signaling or bike handling skills, but those could be other videos to create and show as kids get more excited about riding.
My Project on my own site






Typetrigger ~ by Laura Totten


Typetrigger.com is a daily dose of writing prompts, doled out every 6 hours. Members can submit a writing prompt (four words or less) for consideration, or respond to the prompt-of-the-hour in 300 words or less. In a school where students have their own iPads/laptops, teachers can begin class by asking students to respond to these prompts so as to encourage writing for a few minutes while they take roll and prepare to begin the daily lesson. Many students who think writing is a challenge might feel more confident in responding to short, open-ended prompts. This exercise can help students with their typing skills, and prepare students to respond to essays. The word limit helps students write concisely, and the culmination of their writing responses over the school year can serve as a small portfolio of their writing growth. In classrooms without access to computers, teachers can have a trigger suggestion box for students to submit writing prompts, and write in journals specific to this activity. Check out this video to see how easy it is to use.



Teachable Moment

(Betsy Bissell)

teachable_moment.gif

Teachable Moment is a website run by the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. It is a great resource for teachers to find lesson plans on relevant, up-to-date social justice issues for elementary through high school students. The lesson topics range from the continuing war in Afghanistan to controversies in the advertising industry to the Occupy Wall Street protests. With help from these plans, teachers can quickly put together lessons and units on the "real world" issues students are seeing debated in the news, at home, on their media devices, etc. This is a great way to get students thinking about and interested in current events, an area that schools often don't take the time to talk about. Most importantly, however, these lesson plans get students thinking about the social responsibility issues that are critical to their development as conscientious citizens.


Jing

(Collin Gibbs)
Jing.jpg
Jing allows educators the ability to create and share videos by utilizing screen captures. Once the screen is captured, the teacher can create tutorials for students to follow. This tool is very useful for teachers that need to scaffold technology instruction for students. It can also be very useful to create tutorials for other educators and administrators that need help with programs or concepts. I think this program provides an essential need for technology in K-12 schools. For those that are uncomfortable and unfamiliar with technology, extra help is needed. Simply taking courses on technology is not always enough for information to sink in. Creating videos allows for the teacher to give directions, go over rubrics, instruct, clarify and make expectations transparent. I hope you will find this resource as valuable as I do. Click here or on the image to go to the tutorial video I made explaining this product and its uses in the classroom.

http://youtu.be/enCyLo2gQx4

Elizabeth Montoya, Cindy Torres, Yi-Hsuan (Katie)
This video can serve as an introduction to creating a community within your classroom. It includes eight different languages, and discusses different foods while displaying different locations in the world. I hope you enjoy it!





Why Study History? By Aria Peters and Jerome Hunter
This is a video that could be used as an introduction to a history class. We used some U.S. History images to draw attention to the importance of studying history. Enjoy!






We are Electric Monkey by Andy Giron, Matt Harrow, and Torrey Womble.

Purpose: Our idea was to showcase how students in an art or music class could write a song and make a music video. This assignment would allow students to collaborate on writing a song together, and then make a music video out of their song using !IMovie. Our goal was to show how students can have fun while being creative!


Dividing Fractions video by Ashley Meyer



Purpose:
In this video, I offer a simple explanation of what dividing fractions means. I do not solve the equations on paper, but offer a visual explanation to help students understand what dividing fractions means. The end is the best part, so stay tuned!

Purpose:
iMovie is pretty cool! I think that students (especially History students) will be able to use iMovie in a way that will allow them to creatively interpret videos and images from the past . As many of you may already know, iMovie is quick and easy to use. Here's a video that I whipped up in no time, take a look!